


Sailing the Seas

by dontlookback



Category: Outer Banks (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Multi, bc i love au's and we need them, more tags will be added, that's right we're diving into au's, the original characters are just to fill up some background roles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:42:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25271056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontlookback/pseuds/dontlookback
Summary: Pope never thought he'd end up a pirate, but sometimes life throws something unexpected your way, like a blonde pirate recruiting you into a better - albeit stranger - life.
Relationships: Background Sarah Cameron/Kiara, JJ/Pope (Outer Banks)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 32





	Sailing the Seas

**Author's Note:**

> i got inspired to write a pirate au a few hours ago and well, here we are. i've got a vague plan for the plot but i didn't plan it all out because that just takes all the fun out of it for me, so i hope i can update regularly.
> 
> enjoy!

“So what are you in trouble for, then?”

For a moment, Pope didn’t realize the question was directed at him. He was stood at the side of the market square – it was the place in town where there was never peace and quiet, he’d learned over the bare two weeks he’d been living there. There was a large market every day, selling anything from fish to buttons to live goats. Nearly every evening, there was a man performing difficult and undoubtedly dangerous tricks. The man lit pieces of fabric on fire and then proceeded to turn and twist and swing them around until everyone was holding their breath, waiting for the moment it’d go wrong. So far, it hadn't.

By the time the fire man left, with some silver and gold coins rich people had thrown into his hat for the show, it was completely dark. Midnight had passed – it was the time of the bastards. This was when the liars, the cheats and the thieves worked their lying, their cheating and their thievery. Usually, they were drunk. Pope avoided the streets after midnight, and if he could not, he made sure he had a pocket knife hidden somewhere. He would be able to handle quickly, would the situation call for it.

It was around noon, however, when the voice from behind pulled him out of his thoughts. It was not the voice itself, but rather the question it asked, that shocked him a little. He turned around, but wasn’t met with the figure of a middle-aged man wearing a guard’s uniform, like he’d been expecting - or maybe dreading was a better way of putting it. Instead, there was a young man, probably in his early twenties, leaning against a barrel stood next to a stall selling expensive jewellery.

“Excuse me?” Pope asked, trying to keep his tone as light and breezy as he could. Showing nerves never brought much good.

The man laughed a little, but it didn’t really give off a friendly vibe. He wasn’t wearing a guard’s uniform, instead dressed in simple pants, a sloppily tucked in blouse, and boots. Too casual to be a guard, even in normal clothes. If Pope had learned anything over the past years, it was that guards in disguise didn’t know how to dress like normal people. They always wore clothes that were a little too well put together, a little too expensive. The point was, this man was not a guard. That, sadly, did not mean he couldn’t cause Pope trouble. With the mess of blond hair, looking like he’d just rolled out of bed, the not-guard was attractive, but not quite cute - he had a mean gleam in his eyes and a nasty, still healing scar ran over his jaw. “I just asked, what are you in trouble for?” repeated the not-guard.

“I’m not,” Pope replied, scratching at his arm as he told the boldfaced lie. “In trouble. What makes you think I am?”

“Oh, come on. You’ve been standing at that exact spot-” Not-guard vaguely motioned to where he was standing. “-for at least five minutes, now, looking at the crowd. A blind man could see you’re making sure whoever it is you’re avoiding isn’t here. It's such a theatrical scene, it'd be a shame if you _weren't_ in trouble, one way or another."

Pope frowned, downplaying his nerves as convincingly as he could. “Sorry to disappoint, but I’m really not in trouble. I’m just waiting for someone.”

“Liar.” It seemed as if that one word was all the response he was going to get when not-guard stayed quiet for a while. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re hiding from the King and his guards themselves.”

Pope didn’t know how to respond to that. Just as he was about to course the conversation – Gods, is that what was happening right now? Was he having a conversation with this man? – in another direction, or rather, to end it, not-guard seemed to catch onto his brief moment of hesitation. Like not-guard hadn’t just paused mid-monologue himself for, like, half a minute. Asshole.

“God, you actually are, aren’t you?” not-guard said with a puzzled expression. “It’s been a while since I met anyone playing fugitive with the guards.” Another short silence fell over them. Pope kept his hand in his pocket, resting on the knife hidden there and contemplating if this was the moment where he made a run for it and fled the city as fast as possible. “You must’ve done some heavy shit to make that happen. Either way, I’m JJ.” Suddenly, the grin on not-guard’s face was back. “I have a way out.”

The conversation quieted down after that. Pope was even more confused than before and took a short moment to figure out the best way to handle the situation at hand. Not-guard – JJ – didn’t seem to care much about moving the conversation forwards, but he did stick around. Pope watched him for a moment as he stepped around the barrel and let his fingers slide over the jewellery displayed in the market stall next to them.

Pope’s eyes darted back to the crowd of people standing all over the square. He had not been lying, before. Not fully. He was waiting for someone. He _was_ making sure no guards were around, JJ had been right about that, but he was _also_ waiting for someone. It was taking too long. After a minute or so, he turned again. JJ was still there, standing against the barrel again, his back to the stall with jewellery. He was turning a glittering necklace around in his hand, just out of sight of the salesman the stall belonged to.

“So you’re not going to, let’s say, tell me what you mean by ‘a way out’?” Pope said, still keeping his stance casual despite his nerves.

JJ looked up. He looked like he’d lost interest, but him having stuck around proved the opposite. “Can’t tell. I suppose you’re just going to have to trust me if you want to get away from here.”

“Why in the King’s name would I do that?”

“Because it’s your only option, so why not? Besides, you’re not really in any position to talk about the King, are you?”

Pope ignored the last, almost mocking question. He nodded towards the necklace JJ was still turning over and over in his hands. “You don’t really seem like the most trustworthy person. No offence.”

“Why’s that?”

A new voice added to the conversation. “Well, you _are_ holding a stolen necklace.” It came from behind Pope, and as soon as he heard it, he felt a rush of relief float over him. JJ seemed a little less glad, grin fading a little as he cocked his head to the side and looked at the person behind Pope. Pope glanced back as well, even though he already knew who it was.

It spoke for JJ that, despite not really seeming happy about the new person jumping into the conversation, he didn’t seem fazed by it, instead carrying on like nothing had changed. “Who says it’s stolen?” He really knew how to ask questions that pissed people - or Pope, at least - off.

Pope took a step to the side so he wasn’t standing between JJ and Kiara anymore. Kiara looked… fine, honestly, just fine, which was a pleasant surprise, considering Pope had, just a minute ago, thought she might have turned into a bloody corpse.

He was about to say something again, but Kie beat him to it. “You don’t seem like a person who accessorises like that.”

“And even if you did,” Pope added helpfully, “you wouldn’t seem like a person who would pay for it.”

JJ just shrugged, completely ignoring their totally legitimate comments. He slid the necklace into his pocket. “There’s a ship called the HMS Pogue at the docks. Can’t miss it – and don’t worry, it’s called the HMS for irony’s sake. We’re not bootlicking King-worshippers. Drop by before midnight if you’re desperate enough; someone’ll let you on if you drop my name.” He tapped two fingers to his head in a mocking salute before he, unexpectedly, walked off and disappeared between the people and stalls.

“I thought you’d _died_.”

Pope was walking alongside Kie. They were a few streets away from the market, by now, which they’d left shortly after JJ had, both eager to get away from there.

“Well, I'm not," Kie said, gesturing down at herself.

“Yeah, I noticed that, thanks.” Pope wasn’t usually this cranky. He really wasn’t. But that encounter just a few minutes ago, along with the vivid – albeit imagined – picture of a brutally murdered Kiara had left him a little on edge. “Why did it take so long?”

“I was committing a crime, Pope. Crime doesn’t usually stick to a time schedule,” Kie said, and she laughed a bit. It was contagious; Pope couldn’t help but laugh along. They walked in silence for a little while after that. Pope still wasn’t completely convinced nothing had gone wrong with Kie’s… mission, or whatever it should be named, but he decided not to continue asking about it right now. Perhaps he was just overthinking it.

Kie broke the silence first. She stopped walking when they reached some bar Pope didn’t recognise. “Wanna grab a drink? I’ve got some extra gold.” On an unstable-looking crate next to the doorpost sat an old man with a cigar dangling from his lips, puffing out smoke every few seconds. Two giggling ladies with red blushing faces and something that could’ve been either soup or vomit on their dresses walked out and walked further, heavily leaning on each other. Nothing about the place was appealing.

“Sure,” Pope agreed.

Barely five minutes later, they sat next to the bar. The place wasn’t any more appealing from the inside. While they were waiting on their drinks, Pope stared at a painting of a goldfish that hung on the wall. A goldfish, of all things, and a badly painted one as well. It was so incredibly out of place it caught every customer’s eye at least once.

Pope averted his gaze. “He knew I’m in trouble, somehow. That I’m running from the King.” Kie looked away from the goldfish painting to throw a questioning look Pope’s way, which meant she hadn’t picked up that part of the conversation. “The guy. Not-guard. JJ. Whatever. He knew I’m running from the King.”

“Oh. That’s… not good.”

No shit.

It was half past eleven in the evening when Pope and Kie reached the docks. They hadn’t really talked about it; the decision was made between them unspoken. JJ had known Pope was running from the guards. Anyone who knew this was a potential threat to them. Thus, they had to make sure they weren’t going to get sold out, or something along those lines. They’d procrastinated it, though, which stupid small talk filled with inside jokes, with as many drinks as they could afford, money-wise and not-getting-drunk-wise. But now, half an hour before the midnight clocks would strike and, apparently, it would be too late to show up, they were here.

The HMS Pogue was, indeed, difficult to miss, but that was partly because there weren’t many ships at the docks in general. The HMS Pogue was the only one that seemed to carry people at that moment – or at least people who weren't sleeping. They'd entered liar-cheat-thief-time, after all. There were a few people walking on and off the deck, carrying crates and barrels. Another few were walking around on the deck itself, rearranging robes and such.

On the side of the ship, engraved in curly letters, stood ‘the HMS Pogue’. Pope glanced at Kie, but she was already making a move to get onto the ship, so he followed just a bit hesitantly. JJ had pretty much asked them to come here, so they weren’t doing anything wrong, but it still felt uneasy.

“Looking for something?” This unfamiliar voice did not come from behind, but from before them just as they were about to get onto the ship. A woman, around their age as well, with blonde hair that, in the shitty candlelight, formed a sharp contrast against the dark of the night, was standing against the edge of the ship.

“I’m Kiara,” Kie said before Pope could say anything. "Or just Kie." The blonde girl raised an eyebrow at them.

“Well, _Kie_ , are you looking for something?”

This time around, Pope was the first to answer. “Someone from here… invited us,” he said, for lack of a better way of saying it. “JJ, he said his name was?”

That got him an eyeroll in return, but it also seemed to clear the air. “Of fucking course,” blond girl said before stepping aside so the way onto the ship wasn’t blocked anymore. “Come aboard.”

Too low for Pope to make out words, blonde girl said something to a guy that was walking by, who listened, nodded and then changed his direction and walked the other way again. By the time Pope and Kie were on deck, the guy was no-where to be seen, having disappeared into the inside of the ship.

“I’m Sarah,” blonde girl said with a smile - Pope couldn't tell if it was a genuine one. “Welcome aboard, make yourselves at home. Someone will give you the speech about how this could be your second home, so I’ll leave that for now.”

“Thank you?” Pope replied, but it sounded like a question, because he wasn't totally sure what he was thanking the other for. Kie was still standing next to him, staring at Sarah with an unreadable expression. "I'm Pope."

There wasn’t time for too much awkward silence before the now familiar figure of JJ came walking up to them. The guy from before followed him out onto the deck, but he didn’t stick around for a conversation and instead hurried off to do whatever it was people did around here.

“So you showed up,” JJ said, directed both at Pope and at Kie, skipping over any greetings that might’ve been in place. He turned to Sarah for a moment, who had stuck around so far. JJ fished something out of his pocket, something that gleamed in the uneven light, and Pope easily recognised it as the necklace he’d stolen before. JJ tossed it over to Sarah, who caught it without hesitation. “Give that to Jack, would you? I haven't seen him all day."

Sarah looked at it for a moment and just nodded. There was no spectacular reaction, so Pope figured this must be a somewhat regular occurrence. “I should find John B,” Sarah spoke up. “See you around, JJ, newbies.” She saluted, much like JJ had done earlier, though with a bit less snark.

She disappeared off somewhere. Now it was just Pope, Kie, JJ, random people walking around that didn't seem to pay much attention to them, and the questions burning on Pope's tongue.

"Jack steals shit and sells it," JJ explained charmingly, though it wasn't the matter Pope wanted explained. "Sometimes I steal shit and Jack sells it. Either way, off topic. So," he repeated what he'd said before, "you showed up."

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what you think? or come scream with me on tumblr @the-pogues :D


End file.
